It’s not that goalies are being run any more today, it’s that their ability to protect themselves from potentially dangerous collisions has been eroded.

Bruins players, including Johnny Boychuk (55) and Zdeno Chara (33), scuffle with the Sabres as Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller (30) gets up after being decked by the Boston's Milan Lucic (obscured) during a game on Nov. 12.

By:Mark ZwolinskiSports Reporter, Published on Thu Dec 08 2011

The way Glenn (Chico) Resch sees it, modern-day NHL goalies are not being “run” in their crease any more than goalies in his playing days during the 1970s and ’80s.

But Resch does concede that today’s goalies — whose plights with getting run were epitomized by recent incidents involving Buffalo’s Ryan Miller and the Leafs’ James Reimer — have seen a gradual erosion of their ability to protect themselves from such potentially dangerous collisions.

“It’s not the numbers, because we were run in my day too, but it’s this situation where goalies are bumped backwards in their crease and players have no fear of doing it to them,” says Resch, who is a colour commentator for the New Jersey Devils on the MSG network.

The NHL has witnessed at least three devastating goalie collisions so far this season, beginning with the spectacular Milan Lucic-Miller wipeout on Nov. 12, and a Miller-Jordan Tootoo wreck on Dec. 3.

Tootoo, of the Nashville Predators, was handed a two-game suspension by the NHL on Dec. 6, the first sentence this season stemming solely from a collision with a goalie.

Lucic, on the other hand, received only a two-minute minor, while Reimer was knocked almost senseless and sidelined for more than a month after an Oct. 22 collision with Montreal’s Brian Gionta that saw no call on the play.

NHL general managers met in Toronto on Nov. 15 — with the Lucic-Miller incident still being hotly debated — and the focus on those goalie incidents shifted dramatically. The GMs and league disciplinarians promised that the seemingly soft response to Lucic would not be repeated, and that there would be much stricter observation and enforcement of the rule protecting goalies, which essentially states that all players must make every effort possible to avoid contact.

Resch supports the league’s handling of goalie safety based on the current rules, but also sees those rules as easily exploitable by forwards.

“It’s like defensive driving. . . . In my day you had your rear window up and your peripheral vision up,” Resch said.

“Guys bumped you just as much but you policed it yourself, you put up your blocker and it was like a stop sign. The problem now is that everyone thinks the rules are there to protect goalies but it’s not always the case. Goalies have let their guards down thinking the rules will take care of them. They’ve been lulled into this sense of security and the players know it, so they’ll take advantage of it any way they can.”

Resch said he once got his glove hand into the face of former Islanders captain Bryan Trottier during a goal-crease meeting. The result was a cut to Trottier’s face, and Resch explained his actions to Trottier when the two discussed the incident afterwards.

While the latest goalie collisions in the NHL led to a concussion for Miller and concussion-like symptoms for Reimer, arguably the worst injury from such incidents occurred in the 1996 playoffs when former Leaf Nick Kypreos and Oilers goalie Grant Fuhr collided, resulting in several torn knee ligaments for Fuhr.

Darren Pang, a former Blackhawks goalie of that era, noted that former Leaf and Oiler Glenn Anderson was a “master” at “driving the net and at the last second putting his arms up like he couldn’t stop.”

Like Resch, he believes players have always known where the goalposts and crease are. But players like Detroit’s Tomas Holmstrom, whose ability to cause mayhem in the goal crease has in part defined his career, constantly think of bending the rules to give their teams an edge over a goalie.

“In the history of the game, it’s whatever edge you can have that is an advantage,” said Pang, a colour commentator for the St. Louis Blues who appears on TSN’s hockey panels.

“When a forward skates by Nik Lidstrom, if he has a chance to hit him and hit him hard, he’s going to take that hit every time. It’s the same thing here. And some goalies in the league are more aggressive than others. There’s no question that if you are in a seven-game playoff series, if you can get to a goalie like that, you have a distinct advantage.”

Pang and Resch noted that players and goalies normally “policed” incidents when a goalie’s crease was crashed or a goalie was run. Those methods have been marginalized since the 2004-05 lockout, both goalies say.

So, where players like Anderson and Claude Lemieux based part of their careers at mastering crease crashing, and were brave and/or crazy enough to face the retribution, today’s players can easily deflect blame.

“There’s a boxing-out mentality today and a defenceman can’t cross-check a forward anymore without a penalty,” Pang said. “And if a D-man doesn’t block out, his first instinct is to knock the forward, and that does damage because a forward, if he feels the slightest touch, falls into a goalie.

“It goes hand in hand . . . with the fear of physical contact going to the net. (In former days), only brave people would (crash the net). Now anyone can go to the net, and that’s why there’s usually a 100-miles-per-hour collision when it happens.”

In the meantime, Miller said prior to the Tootoo suspension that he felt the league was in a difficult position with regard to sending a message through a suspension. But he also hoped to see a “strong message” sent.

“I don’t know how they’re going to handle this one,” Miller said.

“Honestly, I wasn’t ready for that question. Part of me wants to move on and say, ‘Guys are going to drive the net.’ Another part of me is just like, ‘First game back is a little bit fishy.’ But I’d like to see something just come of it so we can kind of move past this where guys have to think twice at least. History kind of shows once you do make some kind of judgment, hence you do make guys think twice.”

Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff, whose team was roundly criticized for its lack of response to the Lucic collision, felt there was “no way” the team could have prevented Tootoo’s hit on Miller.

“Our response was good, obviously. Every man was in there. I think we got to put all that behind us. Even later, Christian Ehrhoff threw one guy down backwards. It was (Patric) Hornqvist or somebody that tried going in the crease. We’re protecting well. There’s nothing we could have done to protect that. It’s just that Tootoo just decided to keep on going.

“Goalies are going to get bumped all the time,” Ruff added. “I mean, bumping goalies, that happens. Detroit parked Holmstrom in the paint on one of the goals. Jhonas (backup goalie Enroth), being a young goalie, didn’t battle for his ice. That stuff happens. That’s done on purpose. That’s part of the game. But to blatantly run your goaltender is not part of the game.”

Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault reflected on goalie running over the weekend and felt part of the reason behind it is rooted in strategies to score goals in an NHL where the number of 50-goal scorers is decreasing.

“You want your players to go to those areas and be a good net presence and it’s a hard league to score goals in,” Vigneault told the Vancouver Province.

“But obviously, you want your goaltenders to be protected — I want all 30 to be protected. It’s a position that’s important, but it’s a fine line there and some obviously cross the line and that makes it very challenging for referees and everybody else in the game.”

Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo missed two games after suffering cartilage damage during a game against the Islanders three weeks ago. He missed another five games when backup Cory Schneider played well enough to keep Luongo on the bench.

Luongo agreed there’s a strategy in crashing the crease, and it’s a large part of the reason why players are targeting goalies today, even at the expense of injuring them.

“With all the top goalies, that’s pretty much the same strategy,” Luongo said. “Make sure you get in their faces and create havoc and get sticks in and pitchforking — that’s the way that league is right now. We have to do a good job of not getting distracted by it and hope for the best. Most of time when you’re on your knees making a save you have no leverage.

“That’s something the league is going to have to look at — something to be more aware of to be addressed.”

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